Chocolate

One's mind drifts to funny places when they are free falling into Hell. It drifts especially far when the only thing preventing certain doom is a glorified sheet of green silk. H, Private James McNamara was dangling over a nightmare, hanging only by a few threads. Even so, the  101st Airborne Division soldier found his thoughts drifting to chocolate.

Thoughts flooded into his terrified mind, thoughts of the near tasteless, condensed bars crammed into his musette bag, of the sinful, delicious smell of the chocolate factory back home in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Onward his mind drifted, now focusing on his mother’s chocolate chip cookies of all things, and filling him with a longing to be home to eat one. He yearned for any thought, any memory to keep his mind off of his fall. McNamara, like so many thousands of others, was falling by parachute into the coastal region of Normandy, France.

On this cool June night over France, he didn’t want to think about things such as how he had no clue what he was falling toward, other than the fact that it looked like a farm from up here. He didn’t want to think about how his plane had been hit by the screaming, whistling, burning flashes of German-Anti aircraft fire that erupted from the ground below. He didn’t want to think about the tortured screams of those still in the plane, crying out like lost souls flung through the very gates of Hell. Their aluminum C-47 had erupted into a billowing, dancing pillar of flame from the left wing moments after James had jumped, sending all those that didn’t make it through the door in time hurtling to the ground below.

Mac had lost friends, he knew. Not everyone in his “stick”,  had made it out. They were the men he’d trained with, ate with, and raised hell with ever since basic training nearly two years ago. In a flash, they were gone. Like all who would lose friends in the wee hours of this morning of June 6th , he’d have to dwell on his loss later. For now, the ground below was finally rising up to meet him.

The young soldier hit the ground hard, falling onto his side, taking some of the impact off of his feet and placing it first on his ankles, then calves, then knees, then thighs and finally his torso and arm as his body fell sideways. He had to count his blessings; unlike so many others, he’d made it down safely with most of his gear still on him.

He quickly rose, unsheathing the combat knife that was tied tightly to his ankle  with its own scabbard’s strap at the hilt and twine at the tip. He worked frantically for a few moments to cut away the nylon ropes of his parachute harness. The ropes tried to entangle him, to ensnare him like a kraken as the parachute was kicked up by a small breeze, trying to pull him with it. It took nearly a full minute before he was free, the ropes cut and the parachute making its triumphant, billowing escape.

It was only then that the young soldier could take any real note of his surroundings. All around him came the drone of planes above, the staccato, chattering fire of German Anti-Aircraft batteries, the distant, zipping sound of MG-42 machine guns firing away into the night, and the dull thuds and bright flashes of artillery beginning to light the horizon and provide a bit of percussion to the deadly symphony unfurling all around him.

He stood in a wheat field, or at least something that used to be a wheat field. The soil lay dormant, no crops had been sown within, no golden tendrils had risen to greet the warming summer sun. The field was surrounded to the East, South and West by a hedgerow, a thick tangle of foliage used as a property boundary here. The brush wall was neatly trimmed, too thick to pass through without difficulty, and too high for the young airborne soldier to have any real clue what would await him on the other side.

To the North lay the farmhouse, certainly not a mark of wealth or opulence of whomever lived there. It stood silent as it had for generations, the simple one story wooden home pockmarked throughout the thatched roof and mud brick walls. No lights burned within, no sounds were uttered.  The hedgerows guarded it on either side. The only way out of this field was that pockmarked, unlit old home.

James moved quietly toward the home, reaching for his rifle, only to find the spot where it had been strapped to his chest empty. He’d not made it with all his gear after all. He checked for the pistol holster strapped across his chest and tied with twine to the khaki canvas ammunition belt which circled his waist. The heft of the Colt. 45 caliber pistol, the checkered texture of its bakelite plastic grip and the cold blue gleam of it’s steel frame were reassuring, letting him know he had at least one ally in this familiar yet alien landscape.

He slipped into the home, his footfalls light and quiet, trying to sneak through what was left of the house to get to whatever lay outside. The worn, scuffed brown leather of his jump boots gave a creak of protest as he stepped from grass and dirt onto a wooden floor, moving through a simple wooden plank door which hung off-kilter on only one hinge. The home was simple indeed, a white enamel wood stove in the corner of the kitchen, which now rested dormant, unlit, unused. The wooden icebox was long empty, the door hanging open, and the simple wooden table and chairs were strewn, as if thrown by some angry beast, to all corners of the room.

A hallway ran across the home, and across it lay what might have been a parlor or living room once, in a time before war and it’s dark hands had closed its grasp around it. A brown canvas chair, ripped and torn, sat near a window overlooking the road, a closed plank door next to them both, closed at the moment. A table lay pushed against the door, jamming under the brass handle, as if in a vain attempt to keep the chaos outside from invading the small home. The soldier sighed, looking to a photograph in a simple square brass frame, the glass cover shattered over the black and white photograph. In monochrome, it contained a portrait of the family who had lived here. A strikingly handsome young man, wearing a simple gray suit, his black hair parted over a boyish face framed by rounded glasses. He smiled, holding a young girl in one arm. The smiling child  couldn’t have been more than ten, flaxen blond locks flowing down past her shoulders and over her back. He could almost see the sparkle in her eyes, the image of innocence there bringing a smile to Mac’s young features. Mother and daughter certainly shared a resemblance, both wearing simple white dresses and sharing in that same innocent sort of beauty. The elder woman’s hair was done up in a bun as she smiled for the camera, her arm around her husband and resting on her daughter’s ankle. A happy moment forever frozen in time, monochrome and unchanging.

The sound that froze Mac in horror was not a gunshot, nor the clicking and clacking of a weapon being loaded. No, it was a tiny sniffling, a whimpering in fear and desperation. It came from somewhere down the hallway, and seemed perfectly timed to a few dull thuds of artillery or mortars in the distance. He moved quietly back into the hall, moving for the two other doors which lay down the narrow corridor.

The sight of another being next to him gave him a start, and he nearly cried out as he spun in fear, only to face down himself. He’d almost shot at a mirror. If it weren’t for the chaos all around him, or the fear of dying before the sun rose again, he might have laughed. His cool, clear blue eyes stared back at him, seemingly a bit more clouded than he’d remembered from before boarding the plane which brought him here. Fiery red hair in an Irish tradition was still tightly curled under his helmet, and his fair complexion was marred only by a few freckles here and there on his boyish face. No bullet holes yet. At least that drew a bit of a smile from him.

Another thud in the distance, and another zip of machine gun fire a bit closer than that, and finally another small whimper. It came from the door on the right, which lay open to the hallway. It was small, feminine, clearly no terrified soldier or cowering adult. This was the frightened mewling of a child.

He stepped into the room quietly, finding it near empty and unoccupied. A simple bed and wooden armoire all that adorned the room. The armoire doors stood open, the clothing within small, clearly meant for a child. But there was no child here, it seemed. It didn’t take long to dawn on him where the child was though. The first place he’d always gone to hide as a kid was simple, and he’d imagine French children thought much like American ones.

Slowly he stepped toward the bed, the 18 year old paratrooper taking a crookneck flashlight from the web straps that crisscrossed his body to hold his equipment. Its bright white beam pierced the darkness under the bed, revealing a pair of weathered blue eyes staring straight back at him. The girl shrieked, trying to crawl backward, only to find herself out from under the bed. She was clearly the girl from the picture, those same bright blond locks flailing wildly as she ran for the door, only to stumble and fall over her own shoelaces. She cried out, the young American shushing her quietly, moving in front of her to block her path as he spoke quietly. “Je suis American…. Je suis ami….”  He looked to her, his eyes meeting her own as she looked up at him through tears, the only gesture given being a quiet nod. His French was slow and mispronounced, but it had gotten at least part of his message across.

Mac smiled for a brief moment. He had to find his platoon, what was left of them. He had to fight a war, defeat the Nazis and get back home. But at this moment, it didn’t seem quite as important as comforting this young girl. She was older now, perhaps twelve or thirteen, the picture must have been a few years old. She wore a modest floral pattern dress, a splash of color in an otherwise dark and unforgiving world, a world gone mad.
         
The soldier reached into his green canvas Musette bag, searching for what little treasures he could offer the young girl. After a moment he found what he sought, his dirty, calloused hand returning from the dark abyss with a small bar of chocolate. “Shakolah....” It was still horribly mispronounced, though again it got his point across. The girl took the candy, peeling off the brown paper with the reverence of a cleric handling a sacred relic. She huddled the bar close to her form, as if expecting some unseen hand to assault her new prize and steal it away.

Slowly the shining tinfoil beneath would be discarded, revealing the dark, condensed chocolate within. She nibbled delicately upon it even as Mac checked over his equipment, finding out just what had survived the turbulent first few moments of freefall before his chute had opened.

His bayonet was still there, thankfully, as was the brown canvas musette bag  stuffed to the brim with two blankets, spare ammunition for the rifle he no longer had, and a few personal effects.  His gas mask was gone, ripped away in the torrent of his initial descent, as was most of the other gear he was supposed to  be carrying.

The girl didn't seem to mind his lack of equipment as much as he did. She was
smiling now, enjoying what had been a long lost delicacy by the look of it. Her smile drug one out of him. He wondered how long it had been since she'd smiled. This was what he was fighting for, he knew. He could only hope he'd live to see more smiles on more faces like her own.

“Merci.” The word was quiet and soft, but spoken with a sort of reverence and
purity only a child could reach. Mac simply nodded to the smiling girl, moving to slowly sit down against the wall, taking off his helmet for a long few moments. The girl sat next to him, curling her legs up under her and sighing as she stared down at the candy bar.

“Je m'apelle Jean...”

“James.” He stared down at the young girl for a long few moments as she leaned against him. In a few minutes he'd have to search for his squad, and then start fighting a war against an enemy probably just as scared as he was. But for right now, he was glad for chocolate. He was glad to be alive. In the smile of a child, he was glad to feel human again, even if it was just for a little while.